Fair Farming Doctrine
Overview The Fair Farming Doctrine is a player generated rule that says that if a player keep has more than 1 Million of a single resource when it is scouted, the keep is considered fair game to attack for all of its resources. However, if a keep does not have more than 1 Million of any single resource, the keep is not to be attacked. No declarations of war or reprisals will be meted out to the attacker provided that the attacker follows the Fair Farming Doctrine. How to Protect Yourself If most major allegiances in a Kingdom agree to abide by the Fair Farming Doctrine, players can protect themselves from attack by doing the following: *Keep resource numbers under 1 Million each, if at all possible. *Don't open resource boxes until you need the resources for a specific build. Resources in boxes do not count toward the numbers that one sees on scouting reports and cannot be taken when attacked. *Players may find it helpful at times to hold off on collecting some rewards (such as from Tyrion), if the rewards would bring the player's resource numbers above 1 Million. *If one can't help bringing a resource above 1 Million (such as when saving up for a major construction build), players should consider using a Peace Shield to protect their keeps whenever they are logging off the game for an extended period of time. *Be aware of when official PVP events occur in your Kingdom, since Fair Farming rules are suspended during these times. Purpose Players typically find this rule benefits all players. Weaker players benefit by: *Knowing that they are protected from attack if they have fewer than 1 Million of any single resource. *Knowing that they can save their Peace Shields specifically for those times when they have more than 1 Million of a single resource. This reduces the cost of defending their keeps by knowing that they do not have to Peace Shield their keeps at other times. *A player outside of a major allegiance can attack a member of a major allegiance for resources without fear of reprisals, provided that they follow the Fair Farming Doctrine. Stronger players benefit by: *Being able to freely attack other players with more than 1 Million of any resource in order to steal resources. Resource costs for higher level buildings, maester studies, army construction, etc. skyrocket at higher levels, making it nearly impossible to gather enough resources through purely peaceful means. *Being able to attack people of other major allegiances without fear of reprisal, provided that the attacker followed the Fair Farming Doctrine. Exceptions The Fair Farming Doctrine applies in default "neutral" situations. There are some times when it does not apply: *If an allegiance issues a Declaration of War against another allegiance, its members can attack the other allegiance with impunity. *Conversely, allegiances can enter into Nonaggression Pacts (NAPs) or alliances where they agree to never attack each other no matter what. *Operations designed around taking or defending Seats of Power do not follow these guidelines. For example, if a Seat of Power is about to open, allegiances will sometimes gather around that SOP and attack each other to push each other off or get a better placement around the SOP. Of course, such attacks could themselves create enough animosity that a Declaration of War may be issued, so one must be careful when engaging in such attacks. *During official game PVP events, Fair Farming rules are suspended for the duration. (Peace shields are highly recommended during this time). Enforcement As the Fair Farming Doctrine is a player generated rule, it is also a rule that is enforced by players. Players and allegiances who consistently flout the Fair Farming Doctrine will typically find themselves at war with all allegiances who do follow it. When an allegiance finds its members constantly attacked and drained of their resources, the allegiance typically repents and falls in line or falls apart as its members leave. Internally, allegiance leaders are expected to police their members and resolve disputes with members of other allegiances. For example, an allegiance leader might require members to take a screenshot of scouting reports and post them to the allegiance's Discord to prove that they were following the Fair Farming Doctrine when they attacked another player. An occasional mistake may be forgiven with an apology or an attempt to make things up with the person who was attacked. Frequent violations of the Fair Farming Doctrine will often lead the bannerman to be expelled from an allegiance lest the entire allegiance find itself at war with most of the allegiances in the Kingdom. __FORCETOC__